Going into Deer, I had a sneaking suspicion that things could be tougher.  My suspicions proved to be true for most of they field.  My partner, Matt Veech (Gopher Jr. Member) were last out, so we lingered around to fish some of the cabbage and shallow structure near the ramp.  I started out with a Matte Bluegill colored Ima Flit jerkbait, working the drop over where some cabbage tapered off from about 5 feet to 10ft.  Nothing happened there.  I then started flipping a 1/4oz Tru-Tungsten jig into some wood, I caught one that was so close to 14″ but not quite.  I then worked my way onto a flat and caught 3 short fish on a RedEye Shad in Metallic Tn Shad.

We then hopped to another area and Matt quickly caught several short fish drop shotting a baby brush hog.  I then tried my Baby Ring Fry with a 1/8oz Tru-Tungsten sinker pegged about 18″ up the line and caught several short fish right along side of him.  As the sun got higher, we started poking around the shallows.  I was tossing a Jackall Flick Shake worm on an 1/8oz Zappu Inchi Wacky Jig.  Caught a few short fish on that, the larger fish were far & few between and very weary.  I then spotted a fairly large musky up near a tree.  I flicked my Inchi Jig in front of his face and he quickly sucked it in.  I set the hook and the battle was on, he was giving me all I wanted with 8lb Vicious Fluoro, once I got him a little closer, I saw I had him hooked perfectly in the corner of his mouth.  I got him close to the boat several times, but my bass net was so tiny that it just did not work out.  After having him in net range 3 or 4 times he finally busted me off.  He was probably in the 35″ range.  It would have been nice to get my hands on her and get a picture for the blog

Well we continued to try different things all day, spent a lot of time on docks.  I caught several fish on texas rigged baby ring frys and 1/4oz TT Jigs.  Overall, I fished pretty sloppy, it seems every time I would hook a good fish, I would manage to drop them.  If they were short, I would then every time.  My JKruz Riptide Sunglasses allowed me to see a lot of decent fish around docks, but it was very frustrating as most of them were not interested in biting.  With about 15 minutes ago, I finally got one to the boat and it was a good fish.

At the weigh in, I weighed my one fish at 3.5lbs.  It put me in 7th place out of 22 guys, there were several zeros.  That fish was good for Big Bass money, which made me feel a little better about only boating one bass.  You can see the final standings here.  Hopefully, I have all these drops behind me before my first Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament on the Le Homme Dieu Chain on June 7th.   If there are any boaters that are fishing the MN Weekend Series and are looking for links, let me know as I have 3 non-boater buddies looking for links.

Rich
RichLindgren.com 
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